


Stuck in the Middle with You...

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Danny take a trip around the world and help each other deal with their many issues - one mile at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New York

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the March Bingo on the 1_million_words comm. I took the locations option - and drew prompts for countries around the world. No excess drama this fic- no OMCs, no misunderstandings, just S&D dealing with life and on the road.....

“Ready for one?”

“Nah,” Danny didn’t even look at the left arm Steve was wrapping around him, or the beer in his hand. “I don’t know. Maybe later.”

Steve stayed put for a second, eyes going back and forth between the offering he’d just made and his own beer in his right hand. 

Then he shrugged and set them both on the patio table behind them.

“Fine. How about a hug instead?” He got into position behind Danny again, arms sliding back into place.

Danny still couldn’t be said to be showing any great enthusiasm – but at least he was letting his own arms find their way over Steve’s, was letting himself fall into Steve’s embrace. It beat the hell out of him pushing him away, too, which – with the mood Danny had been in since they hit the airport in Honolulu that morning? Could easily have happened.

“God, I _hate_ her… so much." Danny gritted out the words.

“It’s a miracle!” Steve swayed slightly in mock-ecstasy, making him rock too. “My time machine! It works!”

“I know, I know, I _know_. I’m sorry but… I’m not sorry. It’s all her fault. If Rachel hadn’t pushed it, Grace wouldn’t be starting college in freaking PARIS next week. She’d be at the U of H, and we’d be out on the lanai right now-- not half-freezing on a patio in a sublet apartment in Manhattan and…”

“Ummm… Mister East Coast? I thought you… _wanted_ to be here? I thought you wanted….”

He was determined not to let Danny’s mood be catching but….damn it, they’d planned for this. Saved for it; for taking three solid months off to travel with Gracie and help her set up in her new life, then to see the world together – Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America…..

And this was how it was starting off.

“I’m sorry, babe,” Danny’s hand ran over his arm, soothing. “I am. I know you’ve put up with the drama that is me and Grace and Rachel and Stan forever and freaking forever. More than anyone should have to put up with. And jeez… I’m _really_ know I’m being an ass when I think about what you’ve been through lately. But…. honestly? I’m still not okay with what they can give her that I can’t.”

Leave it to Danny to cut to the actual chase. 

“Do you think Grace gives a damn about any of that?”

Steve pulled him in tighter as he asked it - tilted Danny’s head to one side, accosting his cheek, neck and shoulder with his mouth, pushing the collar of the button down shirt Danny was wearing aside for better access as he went and….

“I love you…” Danny breathed it, voice shaky, falling back into him even more and Steve added a little bite to his wandering kiss. “You know that, right?”

“Hell, yeah, I do….”

They would fall asleep in a sweaty tangle; spend the next day walking the park, the square, the Upper West Side and Soho. But when they looked back on it later, all they would remember were the nerves that week.

It made sense, though: Because Grace wasn’t the only one starting a new life.

They were, too….


	2. Paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the March bingo on the 1_million_words comm - I took the locations card and each chapter will be on another stop on their trip. :). Hoping to achieve a full bingo blackout but time is a ticking...

"The statuary on either side is kind of amazing in itself, huh?" Steve asked.

He gave Danny a light kick on the back of his shoe when no answer was forthcoming.

"Yeah. It's ...really something else."

They were standing on the Champs Elysées about to tackle the potentially deadly challenge of crossing over to the Arc de Triomphe in mid-afternoon traffic. Danny didn’t have room to worry about it, apparently; was standing with his hands balled in his pockets, arms tight and frown tighter, brain several arrondissements away with Grace.

"Heads up – we’ve gotta run for it, okay?” Steve saw their break and tugged him along into the street.

He had learned how to read that face over these past seven and a half years - knew he was going to hear all about the thoughts coloring his mood once they were on the other side.

In five ...four...three...two... 

"Here's the part I don't get…” Danny stopped flat, inches past the cars now spinning at break-neck speed on the circle around them. “These are the only two days we've got her all to ourselves before we leave; you, me, and our girl without either of those ...instigators around. So why, exactly, would you tell her to go running off with her friends? Why would you say ‘we kind of have plans anyway' when we do not. Have any. Why would…”

"You didn't see her face," Steve cut in. 

It was tricky, doing it loud enough to make him really hear it without sounding too harsh. 

“Danny, you didn’t see how excited she was to be invited to that dinner. C’mon…think about it; her new best friends and their parents and a small group of her fellow students? She’ll remember it for years- her first night out on the town, ordering her meal in French, walking back to the dorms later and watching people hanging out in the cafes …”

“She really seemed that excited?”

“She was lighting up the room with her eyes just from thinking about it.” 

“I’ve got to let her go. Oh, _God_ , I’ve got to let her go or I’m going to be _‘that’_ father. The pain in the ass, hovering helicopter dad.” 

Considering they were over seven thousand miles from home specifically for the purpose of helping Grace move into her adult years, some people might consider Danny’s epiphany a touch …overdue. But the sight of it kind of broke his heart; Danny looked so vulnerable - the sun in his hair but his blue eyes heavy. 

Steve ran a hand repeatedly over his back to comfort him as they walked.

“It’ll be okay, I swear.” 

“Will it?”

“Yes. It’ll be fine. And then it won’t. And then…it’ll be good again. And soon you’ll get used to it; worrying about her from a ….”

“Holy _crap_ , will you take a look at that?” Danny stopped flat, eyes suddenly on the archway looming in front of them and Steve nodded. “The statues on either side- I thought they were five, eight feet tall maybe. They’re more like…twenty feet.”

“Welcome to Paris,” He gave him a hip check. “That’s what I was trying to tell you about. From what I read, every emperor felt he had to outdo the one before him so they built things larger and larger until….”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I did get leave once in a while. And whenever I could I came here. It’s a great city for walking and thinking.”

“Did you come here with _her_?”

Steve shifted in place, looking away from him, searching for a way to deflect and fast…

“Are you seriously going straight from one of your unhappy places to another one of your…” 

“I want to know, did you ever… here? With her?”

“Out of my five or six visits, Catherine was with me twice. That’s all.” 

When things had gone the way that they did and Danny moved in, Steve had thought the two of them were okay with each other – after a while. Then came the night he’d gotten home to find them in the back yard, in each other’s faces, shouting. He’d said ‘enough’ and made it stick but still… neither could hear the other’s name without a thundercloud sprouting over their head.

“If you say so.”

“I _do_ say so,” Steve heard himself using his ‘I’m trying to be patient’ voice. “And both of those times were …so long ago. Can we leave it at that?”

“Yes,” Danny’s voice was still on the sullen side, but his tone said he was trying.

Steve gave him a ‘c’mon’ push toward the turnstiles, so they could go get their view of the city. 

 

~*~

“I didn’t notice it. This balcony … on our room…when we checked in…” Danny could hear the breathlessness in his own voice despite the traffic noise and the music from the bistros below them and _shit_ …

“You didn’t, huh?”

They’d done this a few hundred times but he felt his face start to warm at the way Steve was grinning – eyes narrow, predatory, hands not so gently taking Danny’s shirt even more apart than it had been a minute ago and reaching for his belt.

They’d toured the arch, walked the gardens near the Louvre, then had dinner sent up so they could eat in private while watching the lights come on.

And now, Danny thought, he himself was becoming dessert. Semi-publicly.

“You asked for one, didn’t you? Room with a balcony?”

“Maybe I did,” Steve had kept batting Danny’s hands away every time he tried to reciprocate and get at Steve’s buttons. He batted them away again now, holding Danny’s wrist while the fingers of his other hand tugged down Danny’s fly and _fuck_ ….

“We should go inside.”

Steve had been grazing at Danny’s mouth, jaw and neck for minutes, dipping in to kiss and nip and suck at his chest, teasing him through his pants with fingertips and the heel of his hand. So the very first hint of warm breeze on his cock, the first feel of skin on skin? It made him twitch, aching, rocking into Steve’s touch.

“Nope. Not inside. Right here….” Steve leaned in for one more long, loose kiss, stroking him the way he liked it and hell if he wasn’t going to come in that hand like a freaking teenager if he kept that up.

Danny warned him so with a long sound full of vowels and he took the hint, dropping to his knees and tugging Danny’s pants past mid-thigh.

“Holy…. wow, that’s kind of filthy…” 

Danny watched Steve suckling the head of his dick in the blue-grey evening air, getting a purposeful drool going, making it nice and sloppy as he pumped harder, fingernails of his other hand tracing up and down the back of Danny’s leg, his ass, and then his eyes had to close, couldn’t stay open because of all the _sogoodtoofastsogood_ and…. 

“Shit, shit, _shiiittttt_ …..ohhhh!”

They were the last coherent syllables he got out as Steve took him deep and he came, his shout embarrassingly loud and echoing off the building.

“Son of a…” he caught his breath, hands shaky on Steve’s shoulder, in his hair as he felt him licking him clean and tucking him gently away. “You’re gonna get us busted…”

“Fine. Inside…” Steve got up slowly and went, pulling him along.

“Sure, now you’re good if we …”

“What I want next?” Steve’s voice was still heavy, sex-hazy, and the sound of it started a nervous thrill that Danny thought was over for the night moving through him again. “We’ll get serious cement abrasions - me on my knees and you on your back and nobody needs that.” 

~*~

“You love Paris…but you’ve never been here with anyone you love.”

Danny wasn’t sure Steve was still awake until he felt him nod against his shoulder. 

“That’s why you told Grace we had plans. You could have said ‘it’s okay, go ahead’ but you said we had plans because you wanted us to have …today.”

“I thought it would be good,” Steve’s voice was even heavier now but in a different way – deeply sated. “We don’t have many… _firsts_. Because of where we were in life when we met. Right?”

“That’s romantic. Terrifyingly romantic out of you.”

“Just because I don’t get all gooey doesn’t mean I’m not capable of…”

“Thank you. For even caring if we have firsts.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve sank into him even deeper as Danny hit the lights. “We’ve got a bunch more places we’re going on this trip…better step up your game, D.”

“Now it’s a competition? Like who can get most creative and passionate and…”

“Maybe.”

“It’s so on, McGarrett…” 

Danny loved on the sleepy little chuckle that got him.


	3. Russia

“What the….hey! What are you doing? You’re gonna get us…median. Median. MEDIAN! Oh, God we’re…driving on the median.”

“Relax, babe. I am _so_ all over this.”

“We’ll both be all over this—all over the _road_ if….stop! Pull over to the side now and …no, wait, don’t; hit the exit instead. Exit! Hit the….. why didn’t you take the exit? The sign had a huge icon for a gas station on it!”

“Did not. That flamey-doo-hickey thing means campground. Right?”

“Wrong! It means _gas station_ , which is exactly what we…signal, signal, _signal_ for the love of God….what’s gotten INTO you?”

“You. A few hours ago. Snappy comeback, huh? Bet you didn’t expect such witty repartee with a side of cheeky in this moment of great interpersonal stress?”

“You’re driving like….”

“Like you do when we’re back home? Yes. I am. How’s it feel, my obtuse, over-confident, oblivious to the point of driving me crazy love of my life?”

“Like we’re gonna die…”

“Exactly. Not fun, is it? And no, before you ask it, I’m not doing this to get even. I’m doing it because EVERYONE in this bizarro-world we are traveling through drives precisely like this, like you, so…. I can’t beat them. I can’t even hope for a kind of detente ‘cause there are millions of them and a mere one of me. I can only….”

“Exit! Gas station – take the ….. EXIT! Why didn’t you take the exit?”

“Sorry. That one I purely just missed. I was so busy enjoying the look of terror on your face.”

“Look at the road. Not my face the….. shit. Road. Tell me again how this isn’t payback?”

“I _will_ get us to another exit and a station and some fuel before…. what’s that?”

“The engine winding down. ‘Cause it’s out of fuel. And probably out of oil, too, from that acrid, burning smell. You drove our CAR to DEATH. Why are you laughing?”

“Because it’s a rental. And because… I’m driving like you do and you’re kind of yapping like I do.”

“In what world do you think the fact that this car is a rental means we don’t end up paying for the damage? Steer. Steer! STEER! Harder. Get us to the side before it…”

“You want me to go harder for you? I can do that, baby, I'll go harder for you anytime you want just say it again and again for me and I’ll…”

“Oh God… we’re gonna get rear ended and we’re going to die. Or you’ll die and I’ll be the one to have to call Gracie and… CRANK the wheel. Crank it!”

“There… see. We are safely on the shoulder now. The traffic is whizzing by and we are fine. Not gonna die.”

“Not gonna… die. Not gonna die. oh.... hell. Let’s take the train to St. Petersburg tomorrow, okay? I can’t take any more of….”

“They do have Triple A here, right?”

“……”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Steve. Steve! STEVE, get your hands off my neck….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know almost nothing about traveling in Russia, but I read that driving there is quite the adventure so I went Cargument... with a twist. ;).


	4. Japan

The Osaka Castle grounds were practically a Technicolor movie - a never-ending ripple of purple, pink and green under a bright blue sky. 

Nishinomaru Garden boasted more than 600 cherry trees, but Danny had decided from his first day in Japan that he liked plum trees more. Their reddish blossoms must be pretty damn sweet; the butterflies seemed to love them, were all over them, everywhere.

They’d gotten there in time for spring… in a year that felt like his official entrance into his own personal fall.

“I’ll be home for the holidays in a few months…” Grace tried to take the positive tack when they hugged her goodbye before hitting the airport.

“ _Eight_ months. Eight is not a few, it’s…”

“I wish you’d see this as an opportunity, not an ending,” the words coming out of her mouth had sounded so freaking mature for a girl of barely eighteen. “I wish you’d be happy. And happy for me.”

Steve jumped in to get his hug in the silence that followed, sparing Danny from having to reply to her. It was impeccable timing because….wow. He wasn’t sure he could have.

“Look what I bought. They’ll ship it home for us…” 

Danny’s eyes focused to watch Steve walking his way, a small planter from the tree-pruning booth they’d stopped at a few hundred yards back looking tiny in his hands. He seemed excited over the slip of a twig– at the potential in it. Danny could see him picturing it in his garden. 

Sometimes, him walking at him from a distance like that? It made Danny wonder at how many million of life’s tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces had to fall into place to make this happen; to make Steve his.

“I thought you liked the cherry trees?” he tapped the bright maroon sticker on that planter and reached up for a kiss.

“Yeah, but…these are nice too. What was that for?”

“It was for nothing. It was because I’m happy. Okay? Let’s go back and get one each. One plum, one cherry.”

“Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Pictures of the Osaka Castle Gardens](http://www.google.com/search?q=plum+blossom&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=63c3U627MYm4yQHirYDABQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1817&bih=883#q=nishinomaru+garden+in+japan&tbm=isch&imgdii=_)


	5. Thailand

“Danny! Dannnnno!”

Thai society was a lot more polite than a lot of places they'd visited. But the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar was very packed tonight: Noisy, buzzing with happy, milling people enjoying their weekend so he barely heard his own name being shouted over the din.

“I’m right here, babe,” Danny ducked his head out of the stall he was shopping in and waved Steve in, holding up the hand-stitched silk bathrobe. “Do you think Kono’s cousin would like this? You know, as a ‘thank you for house sitting for us’ gift? It’s not too personal, right? ‘Cause it’s really nicely made and it’s a hell of a d….”

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t …know. It’s nice.”

He saw it all at once – that Steve was frantic, or maybe slightly post-frantic; eyes glazed, fighting to catch his breath, looking…embarrassed with himself.

“Here,” He dug around in his backpack and pulled out the liter of water they’d brought for their shopping expedition. “Have some while I pay for this…”

He kept his eyes on him while he did, then tugged at Steve’s hand, drawing him past the booths to the relative darkness of a side street.

“What’s wrong?” He waited until they were away from the crowd – a low buzz and the scent of chicken and fish grilling the only indication they weren’t alone – to make small circles on Steve’s back with one hand, to look up at him, demanding his gaze.

“I’m sorry. I … lost you and I know it sounds stupid but I looked and looked. I walked the strip twice and couldn’t find you and….”

“Was it that long? Sorry, I guess I got absorbed. What, did you think maybe I was attacked by space aliens or som…” 

Danny stopped there, silenced by the edge of wild still in those eyes. He realized it might be the exact expression on Steve’s face when he was fifteen, and a simple knock on the front door shattered his family to bits. Or the vacant stare on the face of the ‘him’ who’d taken a phone call from his dad and then listened as….

“I’m sorry, Danny.”

“Don’t you dare be sorry. C’mon.” He leaned in and up to kiss him, a hand making more circles before it dropped to squeeze Steve’s wrist. “It’s all good. I’m good and you’re good and… let’s go do some more bargain hunting, okay?”

“Yeah. We should get… uh, some things for Chin and Kono.”

“And Kamekono too… or we’ll never stop hearing about it. And Kamekono’s cousin and… wow, Ohana makes for some serious shopping, doesn’t it?”

~*~

All was calm by the time they returned to their room but…

Danny lured him to the shower first, peeling away their clothes and ‘tut-tutting’ Steve when he made any kind of move to pick them up and fold them. Then he got them arranged in bed; his back to Steve’s front, both of them on their sides for a long, slow, screw under the ceiling fan.

Steve’s fingers were tight on Danny’s hips, tugging harder than usual at his hair and when Steve went over the edge, there was an extra dose of ‘yes’ in his sounds.

He watched him sleep, after, and marveled at his own stupidity that first year together, way back – thinking Steve was a machine, a tin god with no layers. Hell… he probably hadn’t even found all Steve’s layers yet.

He couldn’t promise him aliens wouldn’t drop out of the sky and take him but… 

He was sure as hell going to do everything he could to stay safe for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ An article about Thailand, including an image of the marketplace in the story - picture number five](http://www.touropia.com/top-attractions-in-thailand/). I've never had the good luck to visit Japan or Thailand, so had to cull some suggestions about what to write from the web. Really want to make it east some day!


	6. New Zealand

“Oh my…. _God_ that’s insane. I’m glad we have the video, ‘cause now there’s proof.” Danny was laughing so hard he was tearing up, peering down through the glass wall of the booth down at the river running flat and blue between the cliffs and trees a hundred and twenty feet below. “He’s nuts. Certifiable. I’ve know for years but this caps it.”

“Sure you don’t want to reconsider?” The bungee jump tour guy waggled the spare shock cord that lay nearby for those who wanted to take tandem jumps. “We can hold your stuff, bring it down to you if ya wanna go for it?”

“That is so not ever, ever happening. Not in this life, not in the next or the…”

“Guess it’s good to know your limits,” the guy gave him a shrug and a grin, then made ready to reel Steve the rest of the way down to the water. “Let’s take you down by the elevator, then, and back to your guy.”

Danny gazed down once more; the motor boat that had been sent to haul Steve to shore was pulling up to him, one of the jump staff holding up the long pole Steve had to grab to steady himself. The river had a teal, almost ice-blue look in the afternoon light, the cliffs behind Steve grey and lined with chalky white streaks. 

It was gorgeous; a beautiful day and place. And Danny was so glad it was over. 

Steve, of course, had jumped with nothing more than a quick ‘whoop,’ and then he’d laughed his ass off once he’d caught his breath. That’s what had sent Danny laughing too; hearing him gleeful like a freaking eight year old at jumping off a twelve-story structure and getting plunged shoulder deep into a river.

Insane.

He’d managed to drop Steve’s wallet and phone in his own nervousness right after the big moment, and he scrambled to gather them now. Then it was into the clunky, noisy, none too large elevator. 

Danny hit the power button on Steve’s phone. Checking the time, pulling up the camera to get a couple of shots of him coming off the boat seemed like good ideas -- and an efficient way to forget how narrow and windowless the elevator was, how creaky it felt.

“Holy….”

“Something wrong?” the tour guide’s voice suggested he’d barely registered Danny’s reaction, was asking to be polite as much as anything.

“No. It’s…” Danny stared at the phone’s ‘recent history’ list. “It’s nothing.”

It must have gotten selected when the phone hit the floor: Steve’s recent call history list. At the top, hours old, was a name and a number he hadn’t seen in… three years? Four?

It made his heart fall, made his brain scream for his thumb to click the home button and get the hell out of the menu but…. he scrolled down instead.

And then he wished he hadn’t.

~*~

“You look like a ghost,” Steve was still grinning, had just pulled on his shorts and was about to tug his t-shirt over his head when Danny got there. “I haven’t actually scared you to death this time, have I?”

“No. You okay? Was that…good? I have a hard time imagining it could be…good… but you sounded…” Danny managed to keep his voice even.

“Hell, yeah it was good. It was awesome.” 

The tour guys were walking back to the elevator, and they stopped for quick goodbyes and to say that the pictures and video would be on the way via email soon. Danny used the time to force his blood pressure back down.

“What’s wrong?” Steve’s voice was more guarded once they’d left. “Are you okay?”

“Let’s…wait. Not now, okay?”

“No, not okay. Yes, now; tell me.”

“I don’t want to ruin it. Ruin your jump, you’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”

“The jump was great. It was awesome, thank you for coming with me, Danny. But it’s done, so tell me what’s going on? That look on your face is starting to freak me out.”

“I didn’t mean to snoop. I _wasn’t_ snooping at all, I swear, but the phone fell and when I picked it up…” he handed it to him along with his wallet. “It, uh, it… _why_ are you calling her? _Today_ , you called her. This morning, after breakfast when I went to check us out of the hotel you called her? And why is _she_ … calling _you_? There are, like seven of them on your log this week alone, and….”

“Danny, stop.”

“…a couple dozen more before that, several a day sometimes and… _why is she calling you?_ It’s been years!”

“Nothing’s happening. I swear.”

“Isn’t that what people say? When they’re cheating?”

“I don’t know what people say when they’re cheating. I don’t because I never have. I wouldn’t _do_ that to you.”

“I know, I know, I… wait….” Danny walked a small circle. “Give me a minute.”

“We have lunch sometimes….” 

He heard it coming out of Steve’s mouth, and somehow the ground under him got even less stable – Danny wasn’t sure how that was possible. 

“A couple of times a month. And right now we talk because… she’s…having a hard time. With her new gig and life in general and….”

“In what _world_?” 

Danny could only get out the three words, but they were enough. Steve got it, nodding, eyes going down to the ground. In what world was that not cheating?

“I should have told you.”

“You _think_?”

“It’s just….you turn purple when I say her name and…. I thought I was only helping a friend.”

“You _thought_?”

“Okay, I must have been wrong. Because I feel bad. I feel wrong so I must be. I’m sorry, Danny.”

“I didn’t even want to talk about this here,” Danny headed for the passenger’s side door. “C’mon. Let’s hit the airport. Our flight’s in five hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have S&D bungee jumping at Taupo Bungy - [ some fun video clips of people taking the plunge are here. ](http://www.taupobungy.co.nz/activities/water-touch-bungy/videos) :). By the way, I will NEVER do this. Nope.


	7. Australia

“I _know_ you’re kidding, right?” Danny treaded water, rinsing off his mask and breathing tube after having given Steve a good, hard shove. “You did not just try to play grab-ass with me?”

“I did. Actually. Yeah.” He held Danny’s eyes for a moment, but then floated on his back. “Thought I’d take the temperature.”

“Frigid. The temperature is … still in the damn freezer. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

They’d slept on the flight, taken a day to get acclimated, and then barely talked at all during their weekend in Sydney. Steve had tried once – attempted to explain that he knew all about his very bad habit of compartmentalizing. He said that in his brain he had moved her out of the lover compartment but not out of the friend compartment and ….

Danny wanted to ask if he needed a shovel to help dig that hole a little deeper, but instead he took a deep breath and only said “Not yet.”

Now they were on Knuckle Reef on the Whitsunday Islands – Steve’s concession to Danny’s fear of huge, open water being to settle for a gorgeous but low-key sheltered place to snorkel. The sun was pounding and the reef was breathtaking; sea green and teal water with deep, black-blue veins running through it. There was a huge supply of brilliant fish around, and ruddy, red turtles covered in patterns that looked like giraffe spots. 

Danny had already wished a dozen times that it didn’t feel like he was seeing it by himself. But it did.

“You have _no_ idea, do you?” He asked.

They were at a spot shallow enough to touch bottom; he felt sand and not coral under his toes, so he let his feet set down. He needed to be grounded when he said it.

“No idea what?”

“How close I came to going the hell home without you?”

The way Steve stopped floating and sank a little before buoying himself - Danny knew how hard that had landed. That was Steve’s button – the _‘you’ll leave me’_ button. He’d fought hard not to press it but... he needed to know how close it had come. How deeply he’d dug into Danny’s _‘you’ll cheat on me someday’_ wound.

Every bit of him hoped Steve would stand up and say something- anything at all would have been fine. But he just did the backstroke, heading away from him and for the boat.

Danny allowed himself a short string of curse words under his breath once he was sure he was out of earshot. Then he floated, and went back to looking for turtles.

~*~

“ _Don’t_ …” He shrugged Steve away and rolled onto his stomach. 

It had to be about three in the morning.

They were half-way through their two weeks in Australia; had survived angry-looking bug bites and brushes with snakes and a scorpion, had even made it through a 120-mile-an-hour bus trip through the Outback that left Danny marveling at how a perfectly straight road could be so absolutely terrifying.

They’d talked some more, too. But they had not done this….

“ _Fuck_ …” He hissed it as Steve went for a known weak spot; nipping Danny’s ear and then licking slow and light at the spot right behind the lobe, a sweet flicking sensation that always turned him into a puddle. “No!”

He reached around for a spare pillow to beat Steve with, and somehow Steve turned that into a wrestling match – one he was clearly aiming to lose. Danny threw himself into it; got Steve on his back, ran his hands over those arms, forearms, finding his wrists, pinning them to the bed above their heads and….

Steve’s body hard and rippling under his- the scent of him sweating and aroused and… nope. No freaking fighting this. He started to get up to look for their bags, to look for the lube but Steve tugged him back down.

“It’s okay, I’m…. c’mon D…” he took Danny’s hand and set it on his own hip, a suggestion to let it wander and when it did Danny found him open and slick and so ready and…

“Did you seriously get up and prep yourself for me? What a….geez, _presumptuous_ much?”

“I know, I know, I… know. _Please_? Need it. Need it so fucking bad…”

“Turn. Now – over.” 

Danny was over him the minute he did, pinning his arms again, nudging his legs open wider with a knee and then taking him with no more words, no apologies for excessive force, just them twisting and bucking and Steve making deeply relieved sounds that got louder and higher when Danny’s teeth found the spot on his shoulder he loved best.

It could have been mistaken for a dog fight before it was over – both of them huffing and groaning in bursts, the filthy sound of Steve's hole taking him and wet skin sliding, slapping. It wasn't like them, to get that way to….lose it. Danny knew he’d feel embarrassed if he had the room for it, but he didn’t.

“We are barely half-fixed…” He whispered between kisses once they were flat out and drained. “Not even.”

“Yes. I know.”

They came to an apparently mutual agreement to stay where they fell; to wake up sore and stuck to the sheets rather than even consider the shower.

It wasn’t the whole solution but it felt, Danny had to admit, freaking awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Knuckle Reef Lagoon](https://www.google.com/search?q=Knuckle+Reef+Lagoon&espv=2&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VxY6U9OCIKm-sQSdsYKQCA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAw&biw=1357&bih=882#q=Knuckle+Reef+Lagoon&tbm=isch&imgdii=_)


	8. Canada

In the end, they worked through it the same way they’d fallen for each other; a little bit at a time.

They’d talked it out by Dubai. Were able to laugh with no discerbable aftertaste by Botswana. Enjoyed Buenos Ares and Brazil and Machu Pich almost like it had never happened. 

It was in Montreal, the tail-end of their trip, when they knew the bump was officially behind them – when they stood and let the saxophone notes of the Jazzfest wash over them on a hot, late summer night and kissed like there weren’t a couple of thousand other people around.

“Y'a des hôtels pour ça!” Someone said, and they’d chuckled into each other’s mouths.

"I'll never leave you," Danny said as they walked to the room they'd been advised to maybe go find.

"Never cheat on you," Steve said. "Swear it."

"I know."


	9. Home

Kono's cousin had done a fantastic job house sitting. There was nothing to dust or fix up. There were a few beers and much fresh food in the fridge, from the shopping money they'd left her.

Danny was good with the idea of starting a bonfire and tipping their suitcases right on into it, but Steve's orderly side kicked in. He unpacked and loaded the washer while Danny fixed something quick and light. Then they walked to the beach and stood and watched the water for a while before their chairs called out to them. 

"You can answer it," Danny said when Steve's phone rang on the grass in front of them. 

"Nah," Steve didn't even look at it. 

"That might be Gracie," he said when Danny's phone rang in his pocket. 

"I'll check later," Danny tossed it on the lawn, too, not looking at the screen. "When does everyone think we're home?" 

"About two days from now. That's what I told Chin last time we talked." 

"Awesome," Danny slid back and accepted the hand asking for his. 

The sunset was about eight different colors that night. 

They all looked exactly like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last chapter is for the middle square- a tropical scene, perfect for bringing them home. Here's the bingo card!
> 
>  


End file.
